174 Chapter 6 Clause types
(141) Buku-na Ali padha bannya'-eng bi' buku-na Bambang.
book-DEF Ali same many-DEF with book-DEF Bambang
‘Ali has the same number of books as Bambang.’
In (139), bannya' ‘many’ occurs as the predicate and the items being compared
occur as a coordinated subject. The sentence in (140) is almost identical, except
the quantifier bannya' is a nominal predicate. In (141), one of the items being
compared is the subject of the clause bukuna Ali and the other is the object of
comparison in a prepositional phrase bi' bukuna Bambang. Finally, it is also
possible to use padha as the predicate with the nominalized quantifier.
(142) Bannya'-na buku-na Ali padha so Bambang.
many-DEF book-DEF Ali same with Bambang
‘Ali has the same number of books as Bambang.’
Superlatives are formed either with the modifier paleng ‘most’ or through
reduplication combined with affixation of -an. In (143) and (144), paleng im-
mediately precedes the property being considered.
(143) Ina paleng penter e dhalem kellas-sa.
Ina most smart at inside class-DEF
‘Ina is the smartest in her class.’
(144) Motor juwa paleng tandhes e jalan.
car that most fast at road
‘That car is the fastest on the road.’
In (143), the complex preposition e dhalem can be replaced simply by e or neng
‘at’.
The other principal structure for superlatives is reduplication and affixa-
tion of -an, as in (145) and (146).
(145) Ina ter-penter-ran e dhalem kellas-sa.
Ina RED-smart-AN at inside class-DEF
‘Ina is the smartest in her class.’
(146) Motor juwa dhes-tandhes-san e jalan.
car that RED-fast-AN at road
‘That car is the fastest on the road.’